THE HOUSE OF HEWETSON 01-t HEWSON OF IRELAND. --~Ji).j",(.l.1;j.l.1 \1~:.i ~ :- £5-, : ~__,,. ~ ,~tth ~- ~r!JM . ?":!:-it;u r -~~~-~~ .Q;; -~'-' V • -µ ~ . -~ . ,_~"";.'"'..:,,__ "'.~~~I:;. • 1-r't MEMOIRS OF THE HOUSE OF HEWE'fSON OR HEWSON OF IRELAND. BY JOHN HE1V"ETSON. LONDON: MITCHELL & HUGHES, 140 "\V ARDOUR STREET, ·w. 1901, freface. To the eYident nath·e modesty of my worthy and distin­ g·uished Ancestors may be ascribed, I opine, the non-existenee of "Memoirs of the Hewetson Family;" or the stirring­ timf>s in whieh they lived, <l.emanding· active lh·es, gave them little leisure to uernte to pursuits other than the serious and responsible duties of life, either as dignitaries of the Church of Irehmd, officers in the Army and Navy, or as Members of the Parliaments of their country. Those stirring epochs of the past have vanished, and the hour-glasK of Time recorus the effluxion of four centuries since the advent of John Hewetson of York, so I take pen in hand to rescue a fair portion of the Family History from oblh-iou. In addition to consulting family documents, I have drawn largely from ,t Pe<l.igree made for Colonel Henry Alexander Hewetson, J.P., by John Henry Glascott, Esq., Assistant Heralu to the h1te Ulster King-of-Arms, collated valuable information from State documents, and laid nnder contri­ bution the works of Beetham, Burke, Lodge, and other authors too numerous to mention. Thus I am enabled to avail myself of the privilege to honour my estimable Ances­ tors, and present to their numerous descendants the follow­ ing Memoirs, which, through lapse of time and want of opportunity to undertake tt more minute investigation, must necessarily be somewhat incomplete. PREFACE. The following· pages not being intended for the public eye accounts for the more or less unconwutioual style employed. The spirit m whieh this Sketch is written is that em­ bodied in the seutimPnts expressetl h:r Lord Lindsay in his Introduction to the "Li Yes of the Lindsays," where he says:- " Be grateful, then, for your descent from relig-ious as well as uobll' Ancestors: it is your duty to he fin, and this is the only wortliy trilmt.:• y,,u 1'.,lll 11nw pay to tl10ir aslH•;.;, Yt-t at tl1e same time lw lllll:';t jt•aluusly (Ill y,,ur :,.;-u:u·,.l li,,;f this hlwful satisfaeti011 drgPnr1·,1tP i11t11 arr«ganc-P, nr a f:111c-i(1d superiority on!r those Kohles of Gui.l's erPati(<ll, wh1_1, P11dow{ 11.l in other respects with en!ry exalted quality, cam wt puiut to a long line of ancestry." A1n·opo.~ to this quotation I may here introduce an Epitaph, written more than one humlred yE'ars ago lJ_r tlu• Rev. John Hewetson of Suirville, upon a man of worth, hut not. of ancient ancestry:- Let other mortals, Hons of earth, Boast their titles, power, and birth ; The lowly mortal here enshriu'd Knew man for better ends designed ; His origin from Heaycu he dre"·, And always kept that Ifo::ixeu in Yiew, Careless of all this worltl ean name, Returned with joy from whence he came. JOHN HK\YETSON. Lo~DO~, K .,v. l!)Ol. CO NT EN TS. PAGE l:STRODl"CTIO:S 1 NAlllU.TIVE PEDIGREE 7 KEr PEJHGREE 108-109 TuE YEs. :Mrc1nu, HEWETso:s, l\1..-\. .. 109 DOCTOR p .I.TRICK HEWETSO::S- 119 Tm; REr. ,Jou:s- HEWETsos, IL\.. 121 T11E lh:r. Hulll-:nT H1-;WETsos, l\I..-\. 12S HoLu. D1::scE::s-Ts . 149 T1rn p AHSO::S-.HIE, SGIRVILLE 165 BRIEi" NoncEs Ol" OTHER HorsEs 172 CoL. JoHN HEwsoN (TilE Cuo}IWELLI.1.N) 204 bDEX: . 208 ILLUSTRATIONS. FA)lILY AIDI8 l!'rontispiece. TnE H.H. RonEnT llEwETso::s-, l\I.A. Toface 57 J OH::S- 1-IEWETSO:S . 60 " l\fEi'\IO 1HR OF THE OF IRELAXD. IXTROD"CCTION. HE most remote ancestor of this Family (which is one of considerable antiquity, and has long been of distinction in Ireland) to whom we can assign il a elate is John Heu:eiso11, merchant, of York (or Hewsonne, as the Somerset Herald "Glowr" ga,·e the name in his -Visitation of York, made in the years 158-i-,j), living in that city in the reigns of Mary I. and Queen Elizabeth. He was born in or before A.D. 1498, in the thirteenth year of Hem;y VII. (six years after the discowr_r of America, and elewn years lJt•fon, Henry YIII. ailceuded the Throne of England). He was admitted to the freedom of the City of York in the thirtieth year of Henry YIII. (1,j:3i-S) as '"Johannes Jfowson, ~forchaunt of the Citie of Yorke." Before the middle of the sixteenth century the family was settled in Ireland. About the same period many eminent and ancient Yorkshire and other families went o,·er to that country, for example, those of Bland, Lambert, Loftus, .Mossom, ~Iusgraw, Poe, etc., which at the time or afterwanls were connected by marriage with the Hewetsons. Hewetson (old English He1cs,mne) is a derivative of the Norman name of Hugh, which, though of rare occunence in its simple form, has furnished a host of derivatives, some of B 2 lIDIOITIS OF 'l'IIE HO-CSE OF "·hich we subjoin. ,·iz. :-Hem=•t,-nn. Hewson. Huehon, Hewison, Hewston, Henson, Hughson, Hueson, Hueston, Huson, and Huston. Hewson is clearly "Hughson," thP son of Hugh, which, with Hewetson, are diminutives and pafron~·mics of "Hugh" in the softer form. Two only of the before-name,l patronymics, derirntfres of Hugh, were used by the fomily-Hewetson and Hewson. There are fi,·e principal bnrnclws of tlw family. At first there existed two main bruuclws: (1) tlw dt>s(•pndants (•f Thomas Hewetson, eldest son of John of York, who settletl in the county of Kildare, aml (2) those of his second son Christopher Hewetsou of Swor<ls, county Du1lin, possessing large estates in the county of Kilkenny, those at Thomastown beiug· wry extensive. Then (:JJ during· the C\nnmonweaJth a branch of the Kildare family, haying- acquin•d possessi.-ms in the county of Limerick_, seated itself at Castle Hewson, near Askeaton, and in its turn gaw off (-!) the Kerry branch, which settled at Ennismore, and (0) onP "·hich subsequently seated itself at Suin·ille in the south of the countr Kilkenny, and about eight miles due west of '\Yaterford. Before the middle of the sen~nteenth century the Hewet­ sons of county Kildare, upon their adYent to the county of Limerick, assumed and thenceforward continued to use the shorter form " Hewson." However, in the middle of the eighteenth century a descendant of the Kildare-Limerick branch, the ReY. John Hewson of Suinille, co. Kilkenny, sixth in descPnt from John of York, and secoml from John, brother of George Hewson of Castle Hewson, resumed the original arnl longer patronymic, and was appointPd a Justice of the Peace for the county of Kilkenny on 2 :S oremb(•r, 1 ,G4, as the Reverend John Heirefaon, which has since been continued by his descendants, with the exception, it is said, of his grandson Barry Drew Hewson, who with his family settled at Charleston, South Carolina. At this time the Rev. John Hewson was thirty-six years of age, and his then relinquish­ ing the shorter surname, with which he entered college and was ordained, resulted from hi;; knowledge of the various HEWETSON OR HEWSON OF IRELAND. 3 branches of the family in the counties of Dublin, Kilkenny, Kildare, Carlow, Tipperary, ,Y exford, and Limerick, and enabled him to arriYe at what we may call a final decision, as we sre that the question had arisen fourteen years before, when he proceeded B.A. as "John Hewson or Hewetson." ,ye now know, with the pedigree before us, that his reasons for reyerting to the orig·inal form "·ere perfectly correct. The second and longer surname has always been borne by the second sou of John of York, the Rev. Christopher Hewetson, and his descendants, of Swords, Thomastown, Carlow, Tlmrles, and Clomnel, though in State Papers and by tl1e histurinn other derirntiYes of "Hugh" have been gin.1 11 to some of them, ,·iz. :- On 20 )lay, 160-J., ~Ir. Christopher Huetson, an ancient :Master of Arts and a Preacher, held the Prebend of Howth, with 011e Rectory annexed, rnlue per annum £46 6s. Sd. sterling. The Archbishop of Dublin, Ptttron. Tlw Vicarage of Swords, value per ,rnnum f:-iO sterling. }fr. H ut>tson, a }faster of Art, a Minister, aml a learned Prenchl•r, is Incumbent and resident there. The Archbishop of Dublin, Patron. The Regal Visitation of 161,j valued the Vicarage of Swords at one hundred marks (£66 13s. 4d.), Christopher Hewetson being then its Vicar and Prebendary of Howth. In 16:30 the Church of Howth was falling into decay. Mr. Huetson, at that time Prebendary, complained that the Lord of Howth (Sir Nicholas, 22nd Lord) and others detained from him twenty acres of lan<l, twenty houses, and fifty-five shillings chief rent due to him and received by his pre­ decessors. Near the wall of the library founded by Primate Marsh is a rnult appropriated to his family. His remains were deposited here on 6 November, 1713, and since that period the following persons : 1720 )fay :n Benjamin Hughson. 1 i 4:3 June 28 Richard Huson, from Swords. li-59 Sep. 22 Mrs. Jane Huson, his widow. Sir ,villiam Betham mentions that Charles Foster, .Alderman (Mayor of Dublin 1640), M.P.